American-Polish Medium with whom
remarkable experiments in
clairvoyance were conducted by Baron von Schrenck-Notzing, Thomas A.
Edison, Hereward Carrington, and Felix Hollaender. Reese was said to have
manifested extraordinary psychic faculties at the age of six. According to
Felix Hollaender, writing in the Annals of Psychic Science (September 1913), these abilities so
terrified the people of the little town where he was born that they
deserted the shop where his father sold miscellaneous goods, and to avoid
ruin he had to send his son away to Posen. The people of the country town
were filled with horror. They considered the child a wizard and possessed by
the devil.

In America, Reese was arrested, condemned
and sentenced for
disorderly conduct. Appealing against his sentence he appeared before
Judge Rosalsky and proved his powers to him. He asked the Judge to write
something on three different pieces of paper, to fold them up and place them
in three different pockets, mixing them in such a way that they could not be
recognized.

Then Judge Rosalsky took one of the
pellets and pressed it against Reese's
forehead. He immediately answered: "You have fifteen dollars in the bank
mentioned in your question." He continued by reading the second paper, which
contained the name of a Miss O'Connor, a former
governess to Judge Rosalsky's children. He also read the third paper,
whereupon Judge Rosalsky acquitted him.

Schrenck-Notzing considered him one of
the most extraordinary men of the time. Thought reading could not
sufficiently account for his performances as the experimenters mostly took
care that they themselves should not know which piece of paper contained
which question. In certain performances, "X-ray clairvoyance" also fell
short as an explanation; his success must have been due to psychometry.
According to the account of Felix Hollaender, he indicated to a commercial
firm the pages on which there was a fraudulent entry. He was given five
percent of the amount of the fraud.

However,
Harry Houdini claimed Reese
was a fraud, and that he knew his methods. In a letter to Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, Houdini wrote: "I have no hesitancy in telling you that I set a snare
at the seance I had with Reese, and caught him cold-blooded. He was startled
when it was over, as he knew that I had bowled him over. So much so that he
claimed I was the only one that had ever detected him." Allegedly !!!!
BUT NEVER divulged to anyone how it was done. Houdini was very good at
throwing out accusations to enhance his own career and reputation.

Reese was at one time an assistant to
Thomas A. Edison, who held seances with him. In his later years, Edison
worked on apparatus to communicate with the dead. Reese also had a
reputation for dowsing and was said to have discovered valuable oil deposits
for the Rockefeller company. So it looked as if this person was one more to
the list of Houdini libelous victims.